Battlegrounds, the mode that makes everyone unhappy

Mcoc started out as PvE game which is totally great, you were having a great time with the game when you first downloaded and started playing

Story quest etc, you die you revive, eventually you defeat the boss, you are happy, nobody knows how many revives you used, how many times you died, no shame at all

Even AW wasn't that bad, you could find 9 other alliance mates in your battlegroup to blame or 29 other alliance mates in your alliance to blame for a loss, there's always someone to blame other than yourself

The loss also comes every few days, you can stomach a loss every few days and recover

But Battlegrounds is a whole different ballgame

I been analyzing battlegrounds as a mode since it first launched, analyzing why some players hate the mode, analyzing why the mode is RESPONSIBLE for making every player unhappy

1. It's just you, no one else to blame for a loss, sure you start to find something else to blame for a loss, RNG caused you to not get the best counter for a toxic defender but ultimately you can't find a physical person to blame for a loss (human psychology at work)

2. A win or loss comes every 15 mins, unlike AW where you get results every few days, Battlegrounds slaps you in the face with a loss every 15 mins, if you count the loss per fight, it's even more, within 15 mins you lost 2 fights plus a loss result (LLL in your face), you don't have enough time to recover from a loss as you start matchmaking looking for a win

3. Your opponent knows you lost (better mute emotes), you feel shame bcos it's not a secret (human psychology) unlike getting whooped by a story quest boss where nobody knows

4. Battlegrounds became worse with toxic defenders that requires a perfect counter, if RNG doesn't give you one, you are screwed, you lose bcos you are slower than your opponent by a few seconds

5. The gap between accounts have widen significantly, whale spenders have more higher rank champions than you

6. Every season start, GC players are mixed together at Diamond 5, the first few days are chaotic, big accounts are unmotivated to get to GC earlier and overstay in VT and you are matched with them, last season elder accounts are still seen in Vibranium on day 28

7. Kabam forces you to play Battlegrounds by putting certain exclusive rewards in VT rewards

8. GC players are exhausted by the time they finish VT bcos they start at Diamond 5 every season

9. You lose similar amount of points in GC so you end up not gaining any points after playing for 2 hours (Players get 1 win in GC and stop playing and get Gamma tier radiance, least amount of effort for the maximum amount of rewards)

10. You forgot to mute emotes (Kabam doesn't make it mute by default on purpose to sell more emotes), some emotes are toxic

11. Everyone is bound to lose matches in a season and nobody likes losing, most players can't handle losing as well as others, in the end after 28 days season nobody is happy, I haven't seen anyone happy with Battlegrounds recently, even any Celestial 1 winner is unhappy with the stuff radiance can buy in store (Kinda outdated by now and overpriced)

Battlegrounds is the source of unhappiness in Mcoc, you play you are unhappy, you don't play you miss out on exclusive rewards you are unhappy too, nobody is happy

Comments

Lost____one

Ditto. I agree.

JESUSCHRIST

Additional point

You don't get anything when you lose, a small reward however small may help to ease your pain when you lose, maybe a small amount of essentia can compensate the feeling of losing, you don't lose for nothing at least

But no, you don't get anything when you lose and you hate Battlegrounds, that's why Kabam says it's a niche mode bcos players avoid Battlegrounds

CheeseMaster482

I disagree with point 1. Technically it's a "1v1" so you can't blame a teammate; however, passive AI and bad rng can can easily cause you to lose. Both of these factors are out of your control so no matter how much "skill" you have, you will never be able to prevent them from happening.

The main problem with BGs is that mcoc clearly was never designed to be a 1v1 fighting game. The game is mainly PVE with some PVP elements (War, Arena). Even then, those PVP modes are still AI based, meaning you are never fighting an actual player in real time. BGs tries to incorporate that missing element by having both players "fight" at the same time, but that does not help at all.

In a traditional fighting game, the winner is whoever gets the most KOs/highest remaining HP. This is a very straight forward and logical system; BGs on the other hand, since it does not have real time PVP, it has to take into account the health remaining and fight duration for both players to see who got the better score. The issue with this is that health remaining and fight duration are both influenced by AI behavior. If your AI decides to be extremely passive, you will lose on time. If your AI decides to be too aggressive, you lose on health. You simply can not manipulate AI like you can a real player.

Kabam should have left BGs as an exclusive battle realm brawl event. Nobody who seriously wants to play a "competitive mode" would search for that in a mobile game. The fact that kabam has already admitted BGs is niche just further reinforces that claim.

The only reason why BGs is so popular video content wise is because there is literally nothing else in the game to do once you beat every quest. If Kabam locked in and actually made PVE content you can grind, less people would be streaming BGs. Mcoc is a PVE game, yet it lacks any PVE activities to grind.

ShaggyM

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2949643#Comment_2949643

if Kabam admits it's a niche game mode why do they put mainstream rewards in it like champ pieces? So they are admitting to making players play a mode they don't like? That just can't be a good business model.

CheeseMaster482

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2949646#Comment_2949646

To boost engagement with the mode. Could also be a lack of content to place chase pieces in.

BringPopcorn

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2949646#Comment_2949646

Because its their excuse to back up their data.

Put a saga chase piece in a horrendous meta season and magically "Hey look how many people played BGs this season!!!" Pretty much what's gonna happen next season.

Average_Desi

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2949629#Comment_2949629

I agree. Maybe like a few hundred essentia if you lose 3 matches . Doesn't even have to be everyday. Just every other day would be enough

Krooks

To play or not to play battlegrounds that is the question.

Rudolph_Raindeer

I agree. Well thought and written.

Coaxmetal

You are totally right. Not a single person in my alli likes battleground but it is played because of meaningful rewards are blocked behind GC and that makes a lot of people unhappy.
The one week break in the bg offseason is in my opinion too short to regenerate motivation of the massive time waste to get to GC every season.
And now they have the great idea to start a bg related event in the offseason and force even more stupid bg play.
This mode was fun in the bg beta but as soon as it launched after that it was only frustrating and time wasting.

O_Deadpool_O

Jesus Christ… I love this post! It is an incredible explanation of what I am personally feel as a middle-level player (Quantum 1-2).

I hate BGs. Does not matter if I win or lose. I am too posioned with everything explained here, that I am not happy even when I win.

ariebrkl

I like the mode

But something need to be done

Rav514

9. Is the most important one. That doesn’t mean that everything else said is not valid only that I’ve been watching battlegrounds also since it launched and 9 is a major design flaw.

This is a game that is built on progression. Regardless of what other mode do you play you are always progressing. Whether it is leveling up, AQ, AW, or story you fight till you can’t then you stop at that point. You rarely lose your progression. This is important because it’s what makes you feel like you’re not wasting your time. Our time is the resource we trade. If we do not feel we are gaining anything then we are wasting it.

Now compare that with battlegrounds. Whether it’s victory, track or gladiator circuit if you lose a match, you lose your progression. This is an instant L for a large majority of the player base. I do realize that the competitive people are fine with this if not, actually enjoy this feature. However, the competitive players are a minority in the player base not a majority.

This is demonstrated by the falling battleground numbers.

This inevitably creates a feedback circle where the players at the bottom stop playing because they can spend their time somewhere more productive, and then the players in the middle become the players at the bottom who then do not enjoy the format because they’re constantly losing , so they stop playing. So on and so forth.

The fix for this is simple, although I don’t think kabam will do it. No setback for losing a match in the victory track or the gladiator circuit. Leave the milestone rewards the same in the same spots. This will allow people to feel like they are not wasting their time. A lot more of the casuals will come back just for the rewards. The competitive players will still be on top and get the best rewards and get bragging rights and thats okay.

I do not mean to imply that this will fix every problem. Battlegrounds has, only that it will increase the player base which will time for other fixes.

I hope somebody in game design actually reads this, though I have no real hopes and just assume the mode is gonna die in about six months to a year.

superbin0001

Not related to this but why mod can permit this guy take the name related to a religion ?

JESUSCHRIST

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2949728#Comment_2949728

JesusChrist is also taken as a name for an account inside Mcoc

And Kabam allows that

It's not my account though

i use a different name inside Mcoc

Disthene_T

The lack of compensation for losing is problematic. Every match has a winner and a loser. Player win rates are probably distributed like a bell curve. Most will have win rates of 40-60%. The few top players with 90%+ win rates are having a ball. Who's playing with an average win rate below 30% though? If people lose too much they stop playing.

When people quit the mode, it just changes who the bottom 20 percentile of players are and encourages a new group to quit.

Solo events were at least a partial motivation to play because there were participation rewards to build to. The 2 day essentia objective is hardly motivation and caps out at 3 participation matches every two days. BGs matches should be farmable for something. Battle Chips would be nice. Play BGs for 2 hours and gets enough chips (Even if you lose a lot) to open arena crystals.

RUTheNight

Oh I agree. Now I was one of those Elder accounts in Vibramium level on the last day, for 2 reasons, one I take things slow and 2 I'm just not that good at the game. For the last week it would win 1 and then lose 2 or more, so I would get nowhere.

Checking the leaderboard I see no one in URU II level and below, which tells me there just aren't a lot of people playing this game made anymore.

Personally I think Kabam should just do away with the punishment of losing until you reach GC. Victory Track should just be win you move forward, lose you stay where you were. 3 Wins and you move up the next level and it doesn't matter if it took you 3 times or 30 times to get those 3 wins. Of course Victory Shields would become useless, but at least lower level account would have a much better chance to advance, hence more reason to play.

zuffy

emotes is toxic. If kabam allow us to disable it permanently, I would play bg more.

ThaGenius_

damn this was a great post.

JESUSCHRIST

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2949761#Comment_2949761

The first thing I do after banning champions is mute emotes

Rav514

I agree. I think this is a great thread. I’m just afraid ththat will all fall on deaf ears. WWe need a YouTuber or somebody at Kabam to acknowledge it.

zerodude

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2949754#Comment_2949754

I'm the same as you, i was going to reach GC, but the thing was so excruciating that i gave up, the rate of win and loss was dumb.

The quantity of points awarded for wining before the CG should be more than 2, its boring and tiring to climb up to GC, and every loss makes you want to give up and so i did.